By Stanley Oronsaye, November 24, 2010

 

 In what amounts to a vote of no confidence, stockbrokers refused to authorize council members of the Nigerian Stock Exchange (NSE) to fix the remuneration of auditors, Akintola Willaims Deloitte.

 

 At the 49th annual general meeting held in Lagos yesterday, member stockbrokers rejected the report after the accounting firm was unable to provide satisfactory answers to some of the observation raised.

 

 Trouble started when Okechukwu Unegbu, the Chief Executive Officer of Maxifund Securities Limited, observed the financial report was not signed. “My concern is the issue of illegality,” he said. “Mr Chairman, this account is not signed. It is a legal issue and I want you to consider it because we may need to get another account.” He added that endorsement by the firm does not substitute for an individual signature.

 

Akintunde Odunsi, the Managing Director of Interstate Securities Limited, said with the investigations into the accounts of the NSE, the submitted financial report may be altered after the final outcome of the forensic investigation into the books of the stock exchange. “If the auditors say investigation is not yet finalised and they are not sure the likely effect it is going to have on the account, my question is why are we hurrying to have AGM and not get to the bottom of it so that at the end of the day we know where we are going,” he said.

 

Unwilling members

 

When it was time to receive and adopt the report of council, financial statement, and report of the auditors, no member was willing to move the motion. Balama Manu, interim president of the NSE council, while admitting the unsatisfactory response, however called on members to adopt the motion. “I will like to say that we seem to have addressed most of the questions not necessarily to the satisfaction of those who raised them, but I will like to move ahead by moving formally that the accounts for the year ended December 31, 2009 and report of council, be received and adopted,” he said.

 

Ebilate Mac-Yoroki, CEO of City Code Trust and Investment Limited, said the conduct of the auditors was not encouraging. “Most of the answers we have had are not satisfactory,” he said. “The auditors that have been auditing this account for a very long time cannot give us the basis for which it is qualifying just last year’s account. The auditor has no new basis on which it is qualifying this account.”

 

It took the intervention of senior stockbrokers to resolve the stalemate after the interim president compelled a council member, Emmanuel Ocholi, to second the motion. “In the interest of moving this exchange forward, let’s not introduce complications. I do not think this is in the interest of the exchange and by implication, all our stakeholders,” Mr Manu said.

 

Subsequently, Aigboje Higo, of Capital Bancorp, appealed to his colleagues to work in harmony in order not to reverse the gains that has been achieved in the last few months. “The market is sick and tired of us not putting our house in order,” he said. “I think it will be wicked and callous for investors who put their money for us to come out again and give stories.” Eventually, the accounts were adopted.

 

Source: 234Next